John Prescott urges inquiry over ‘unpaid Diamond Jubilee stewards’

Labour peer John Prescott has urged the home secretary Theresa May to investigate claims unemployed jobseekers and apprentices were forced to work unpaid on the Diamond Jubilee river pageant.

Tens of thousands of people watched the flotilla during the Thames pageant (Picture: Getty)

According to the Guardian between 30 jobseekers were forced to sleep under London Bridge after coaches dropping them off in London arrived in the early hours of the morning.

The 50 apprentices, all under the age of 25, were meanwhile paid a wage of £2.60 an hour.

Two jobseekers who did not wish to be identified told the newspaper they had to change into security gear out in the open and had no access to toilets for up to 24 hours while working a 14-hour shift.

‘We all got off the coach and we were stranded on the side of the road for 20 minutes until they came back and told us all to follow them,’ one said.

‘We followed them under London Bridge and that’s where they told us to camp out for the night… It was raining and freezing.’

Close Protection, the firm involved in hiring the stewards, said staff on the banks of the Thames were supplied with equipment they could keep and that the experience was necessary to apply for related jobs at the London 2012 Olympics.

But the firm, which hired the jobseekers as part of the government’s work programme, admitted an error had seen coach drivers drop off people brought in from outside London too early.

Former deputy prime minister John Prescott said the reports were ‘appalling’.

‘If the allegations are true, it is totally unacceptable that young unemployed people were bussed in to London from Bristol, Bath and Plymouth and forced to sleep out in the cold overnight before stewarding a major event with no payment,’ he said in a letter to the home secretary.

‘I am deeply concerned that a private security firm is not only providing policing on the cheap but failing to show a duty of care to its staff and threatening to withdraw an opportunity to work at the Olympics as a means to coerce them to work unpaid.’

He added: ‘It also raises very serious questions about the suitability of using private security contractors to do frontline policing instead of trained police officers.

‘I call on you to immediately investigate this matter and alert the Security Industry Authority to see if CPUK (Close Protection UK) has breached its SIA Approved Contractor Status. I also ask you and (culture secretary Jeremy Hunt) urgently review CPUK’s contract to provide security during the Olympics.

‘It would be completely inappropriate for a company that appears to have such a blatant disregard for the care of its workers to be policing such a prestigious event.’